When retired employees gather, the funny tales fly back and forth. Here are stories from people employed over eight decades at General Dynamics, a U.S. aviation and aerospace company headquartered in San Diego, California that began as Consolidated Aircraft, later Convair, became part of General Dynamics branching into Astronautics, Space Systems and then spun off several other corporate entities.

From Southern California to the beaches of Cape Canaveral, these employees created thousands of B-24 bombers that helped win World War II, some of the first commercial airliners, the Atlas Rocket which took Astronaut John Glenn into orbit and the Tomahawk Cruise Missile, which revolutionized Naval Warfare.

Tom Leech’s newest book is Fun on the Job, Amusing and true tales from Rosie-the-Riveters to

Rocket Scientists at a Major Aerospace Company. Tom Leech was with the San Diego General Dynamics aerospace operation for two decades, with assignments in business development, engineering and internal communication (including as division ombudsman, one of the first in corporate America). That GD career provided a solid base for starting his own consulting firm as a presentations coach, seminar leader and conference speaker.

His articles have appeared in many publications, including San Diego Magazine, Presentations, Frontier Airlines, Executive Excellence, and The Toastmaster. His article “How General Dynamics Integrated the Cape,” originally in the San Diego Union, was reprinted in Quest: the History of Spaceflight Quarterly.

The third edition of his highly-successful book, How To Prepare, Stage & Deliver Winning Presentations (AMACOM, 2004), was lauded as one of only two “Top of the Class” books on the subject by Presentations Magazine. He’s author of Say it like Shakespeare: the Bard’s Timeless Tips for Communication Success, an update of the McGraw-Hill First Edition, which has received high praise from many quarters.

Wearing his weekend hat he is co-author, with GD colleague Jack Farnan, of Outdoors San Diego: Hiking, Biking and Camping (Premier 2004) and was longtime Editor of the Outdoors Forum for San Diego Magazine. With his traveler’s hat, he describes his six-months’ wandering the world in On the Road in ’68: a year of turmoil, a journey of friendship. Donning his poet’s cap, he and wife Leslie Johnson-Leech are authors of the children’s tale The Curious Adventures of Santa’s Wayward Elves.

For information about all of his books, visit presentationspress.com. For information about Tom’s coaching, training and speaking services, visit winning-presentations.com. And to expand your nature enjoyment, visit outdoorssandiego.com

My name is Jim Bennett. I have a website at jim-bennett.ca with a welcome page, a blog (writing, writers, and politics) and pages promoting my work. I have provided a few references I think valuable to other human beings, and a plug for the charity at which I volunteer.

I am a writer, mostly poetry, with previous publishing successes. I have several collections of poetry available on Amazon/Kindle. Selection was taken from poems I have work-shopped and worked on and had validated by "my" group of professional writers. See my website's Available Now page for more.

My first Amazon / Kindle book is about death and aging, weakness and coping, hope and despair, and the real human excellence which allows us to rise above our difficulties and love each other, and sometimes even like ourselves. The title poem is Cold Comes Through; there are several poems about my father, whose early death still haunts me.

My second Amazon / Kindle book is about relationships. Some non-starters, some OK, some in trouble, some destructing. The title poem is Behind the Lime Kilns, a drama I made up out of various experiences.

My third Amazon / Kindle book is called Hard Landing, and is about difficult situations and the individuals in them. I have also added ten salacious limericks and some other just-for-fun pieces to lighten up a bit. You may see yourself, your friend, your enemy in the difficult personal experiences captured in these poems. This one book is not for children nor squeamish adults.

My fourth Amazon / Kindle book is titled The Scroll of the Violin. It is about religion and irreligion, belief and disbelief, trial and error, success, relationships, and joy. What it means to be alive and mortal is explored here.

My fifth Amazon / Kindle book is titled Retirement Clock. Some of the poems are a form of time travel: Grand Prix races at Watkins Glen, 9-11 and other disasters (some Canadian), aging and coping, and the cynicism of business success and retirement layoffs. Plus a few poems questioning existence in different ways. What does it mean to come back? from a trip? from an assignment? from a job? These poems will share such experiences with you.

My personal interests include biology and religion. I started out with Shroedinger's title question, What is Life, and delved into biochemistry, biology, microscopy. Quantum effects became important so I sort-of understand that (badly). Social effects made themselves noticed, thus a study of Joseph Campbell and Bruce Feiler, on myths and religion. I have read the Koran in two different (English) translations, cover to cover. I do not claim to understand it, but I have a fair idea of what it says. I think.

My own religious background is Christian, now highly diluted. Yet I volunteer at a Catholic charity, and load boxes and things onto shipping containers, two mornings a week. I've been doing this for years. I retired early, and can spare that much time for a good cause.

I have subscriptions to Scientific American, Popular Photography, and Nature (UK science/research magazine). My head does hurt sometimes when reading the last.

I keep tropical fish. I am a photographer of some ability; I've done two weddings (swore never again after the first one, it's work!) but prefer arty outdoor scenes. And travel photos. And anything my wife tells me to shoot: sometimes I execute better than she, but just don't see the opportunities she does.

I have degrees from University of Toronto. I worked in data processing for IBM and a large Canadian bank. I was once addressed as Mister Systems Architect by an IBM honcho of Finance Industry Marketing. I was good at what I did. It was interesting and challenging.

One thing I learned from development projects is, the product belongs to the client and perhaps the company, but the results of the teamwork, including know-how and mutual respect, belong to the team.

Thus my interest in poetry. I've been in the team on Earth for awhile and have come to many observations. Now I am finding ways, in this new and open digital world, of sharing those with others.

I want each one of you to have a chance to profit from, recognize yourself in, or laugh or cry, with or at, some of my poems. They were written for us, that is, for you.

Jim's Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Jim-Bennett/e/B005HSHNLE Note: Jim Bennett has previously published poems in Event, The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, and Prairie Fire. Another poem was published by Quest Booksellers Review in conjunction with a review Jim was asked to write for Margaret Atwood's poetry collection, Morning in the Burned House. Another poem was included in Cathy Miyata's book, Speaking Rules! which teaches how to teach young children public speaking. The collection Cold Comes Through contains fifty entirely new poems, as does the collection Behind the Lime Kilns, at 56 new poems, Hard Landing, at 57, the Scroll of the Violin at 69 shorter poems, and Retirement Clock at 54 longer ones. Every book contains entirely new, first-published, poems.

Guests on The Rick Lakin Podcast appear in exchange for promotional considerations.

Caroline McCullagh, award-winning author of The Ivory Caribou, coauthor of American Trivia & American Trivia Quiz Book with Richard Lederer, earned a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of California, San Diego. Her diverse writing projects include five novels, a cookbook, a memoir, a student opera (under the auspices of San Diego Opera), fourteen years of monthly book reviews for the San Diego Horticultural Society, and one year as Books Editor for The American Mensa Bulletin. For the past three years, Caroline has written a weekly column for the San Diego Union-Tribune with Richard Lederer. As a professional editor, she teaches creative writing two days a week. The Ivory Caribou, then titled Fire and Ice, was a past Winner at the San Diego Book Awards as Best Unpublished Novel. Caroline has won twice and has been a finalist once.

The Ivory Caribou

Is it a love story? Or is it an adventure story? Or is it a commentaryon the tragedy of war? It is all of these, and more. Caroline McCullaghweaves a thrilling and dynamic story around Anne O’Malley’s genealogical searchfor the story of her late husband’s father that takes her to the far North ofCanada to find new relatives among the Inuit culture, to Europe behind thelines in World War I, and back to the small Inuit village where she findsromance. The IvoryCaribou won Best Unpublished Novel in the San Diego Book Awards.

In TheIvory Caribou, Caroline McCullagh has created an enduring love storybetween a sixty-year-old woman and a man of unusual ethnicity. The author'sreal love, though, is of anthropology, history, and language. She is a luminousstoryteller and wordsmith of the highest order.

Richard Lederer, author of AnguishedEnglish and Amazing Words

I haven’t had this much fun reading prose in a while. The story moveswell, the characters are deftly drawn and the plots are so easily interwovenyou won’t believe your mind.

Eve Selis isn’t just a “singer” — she’s an emotion transducer who converts country, R&B, blues, folk, and rock ‘n’ roll signals into a megawatt zap that galvanizes everyone in its path. And as with fellow femme-furnace frontwomen Bonnie Raitt, Joan Osborne, Maria McKee, Melissa Etheridge, and Lydia Pense, the cauterizing power of Selis’s voice can arc-weld material from almost any genre into a personal manifesto.

— John D’Agostino
Taylor Guitars On Review

As winner of 7 San Diego Music Awards in Americana and Adult Alternative, Eve Selis is no stranger to Roots music. Her newest CD Family Tree features 14 sturdy tracks drawn from the dark, rich soil of American music. From the swamp-rock of “Rubber and Glue” to the plaintive country heartbreaker “Don’t You Feel Lonesome” to Leonard Cohen’s majestic masterpiece “Hallelujah,” Selis and her band dug deep to create a towering opus of interconnected musical branches, all dripping with Selis’s indelible “honey chipotle” voice.

“This CD sums it all up for me,” Selis explains. “I got to explore all the different styles of music I love; I got to co-write with all my favorite songwriters (Marc Intravaia, Kim McLean, Calman Hart, Rich Wiley, Doug Crider); I got to sing wonderful songs about the things that mean the most to me — loss and love, sadness and joy, hardship and triumph, faith and family; I got to record with the best band in San Diego, with the best studio team I’ve ever worked with…I couldn’t be happier about this CD.”

Guests on The Rick Lakin Podcast appear in exchange for promotional considerations.

Eve Selis isn’t just a “singer” — she’s an emotion transducer who converts country, R&B, blues, folk, and rock ‘n’ roll signals into a megawatt zap that galvanizes everyone in its path. And as with fellow femme-furnace frontwomen Bonnie Raitt, Joan Osborne, Maria McKee, Melissa Etheridge, and Lydia Pense, the cauterizing power of Selis’s voice can arc-weld material from almost any genre into a personal manifesto.

— John D’Agostino
Taylor Guitars On Review

As winner of 7 San Diego Music Awards in Americana and Adult Alternative, Eve Selis is no stranger to Roots music. Her newest CD Family Tree features 14 sturdy tracks drawn from the dark, rich soil of American music. From the swamp-rock of “Rubber and Glue” to the plaintive country heartbreaker “Don’t You Feel Lonesome” to Leonard Cohen’s majestic masterpiece “Hallelujah,” Selis and her band dug deep to create a towering opus of interconnected musical branches, all dripping with Selis’s indelible “honey chipotle” voice.

“This CD sums it all up for me,” Selis explains. “I got to explore all the different styles of music I love; I got to co-write with all my favorite songwriters (Marc Intravaia, Kim McLean, Calman Hart, Rich Wiley, Doug Crider); I got to sing wonderful songs about the things that mean the most to me — loss and love, sadness and joy, hardship and triumph, faith and family; I got to record with the best band in San Diego, with the best studio team I’ve ever worked with…I couldn’t be happier about this CD.”

Guests on The Rick Lakin Podcast appear in exchange for promotional considerations.

Dr. Leyse-Wallace received her B.S. degree fromthe University of California at Davis earned her M.S. degree while completing her dietetic internship at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, and in 1998 after her kids were grown was awarded her PhD from The University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.

She began practicing clinical dietetics at Osawatomie State Hospital, followed by practicing at The Menninger Foundation in Topeka. She was later employed at Mesa Vista Hospital (now Sharp-Mesa Vista) in San Diego, California and HCA Willow Park Hospital in Plano, Texas. Her practice included providing nutritional care for patients of all ages hospitalized for eating disorders, alcohol and drug abuse, and general psychiatric diagnoses.

She has served as an adjunct faculty member at Pima County College in Tucson and Mesa College in San Diego. A long-term member of The American Dietetic Association. She has been an active contributor to the Behavioral Health Nutrition dietetic practice group in the AmericanDietetics Association, (now The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics).

Dr. Leyse-Wallace retired from clinical practice and engages in professional writing and speaking and is a member of the SanDiego Writers and Editors Guild. She lives in Alpine, California in eastern San Diego County and has three adult children and five grandchildren.

Dr. Ruth is the author of Linking Nutritionand Mental Health and an update Nutrition and Mental Health

Mardie's Bio

My formal involvement with horses came late in life although my love for everything in the horse world began at an early age. It all started by my going riding at local ranches, then being asked to guide rides as I knew all the trails, finally learning to tack.

But the most fun I had with horses was going on horse drives, cattle roundups, and outdoor horse adventures, i.e. a pack trip over the Continental Divide.

Then a friend and I became interested in learning a holistic method of training and treating horses. But at one of our clinics my friend had a fall and due to a severe brain injury was unable to continue. That also ended my horse training. Then I devoted my energies into therapeutic massage for humans.

My ancient history is growing up in the Midwest, living in New York, Los Angeles, London, Rome and finally San Diego where I used my skills as an Executive Secretary in the corporate world.

Writing started with a small group getting together writing memoirs and other things. After about twenty episodes I had an idea for a novel. Thus began a work that ended up being a novella entitled “A Silent Man.” The few publishers I sent it to weren’t interested in a novella so I began a second novella entitled “a Good Hand.” After the first chapter I decided this would be about Benjamin Harrison Johnson who is mentioned in the first book. Thus, the second effort became Part One of “Go West for Luck Go West for Love” and Part Two was what I had written first.

Now my time is taken up with tennis three times a week and my massage business. I’m also a member of the San Diego Writers/Editors Guild and have published articles in two Anthologies.

Coach Ray Jindra, Hilltop High School Girls Basketball Coach retiring after 10 seasons at Hilltop and 42 seasons as a high school head coach. 565 career wins puts him as the third best in the San Diego Section. This season 18 straight wins, runner-up in the CIF Division III final.